GIANTS. 367 



bined with farinaceous qualities, which render them 

 available, after the manner of gigantic potatoes, as 

 articles of animal food. 



Those truly elegant plants the Ferns, as popular as 

 any of the members of the vegetable kingdom, have 

 also their giants in the tree ferns of tropical climates. 

 The " silver king '' (Cyatkea dealbatd) has leaves, or 

 fronds, from five to seven feet in length; and Dieffen- 

 bach found it growing in New Zealand with trunks 

 upwards of forty-two feet in height. Another, which 

 might be called the " monarch " (Dicksonia antarc- 

 ticd), has fronds from six to twelve feet in length, or 

 more. One plant, cultivated in this country, and 

 hence probably inferior in size to those growing in 

 its native home, is said to have produced fronds 

 eleven feet in length and three feet two inches in 

 width. This plant had altogether fifty fronds, 

 which covered an area of eighteen and a half 

 feet. 1 In Tasmania this fern forms the great 

 feature in the fern valley. Humboldt considers it 

 singular that no mention ' is made of arborescent 

 ferns in the classic authors of antiquity, the first 

 distinct reference being by Oviedo, in the early part 

 of the sixteenth century. However graceful and 

 elegant some of the palms may be in their foliage 

 and the grandeur of their crested forms, these cannot 



1 Lowe's " Ferns, British and Foreign," vol. viii. pi. 126. 



